Track 03 – Rock Hard Times

We are back to just a static image while this Eel’s song plays this week. There were a couple of fan made animation videos for this tune, but there was a giant watermark in the lower lefthand corner for the demo version of the movie maker software. If I’ve peaked your interest for this version, here it is…

Shoot, I Still Need A Chute

In Aiken, we used to be able to pile our yard waste at the curb and the city would come around with a truck armed with the Jaws of Death to remove it. In Klamath Falls, Waste Management takes care of the yard waste along with the trash and recyclables. But here you need to bag the waste and put it out on the curb with your plastic trash & recyclable bins. You get three 30 pound bags a week for free. The first few pickups we used some bio-degradable lawn bags, but when we ran out we bought some paper ones from Home Depot. They are kind of tall and hard to get to fully open. And once you do, they don’t stand still or stay open while loading them, but still nicer than the plastic bags.

A couple weeks back we noticed that our neighbor uses the same Home Depot bags too, but to go along with them she had this cool green plastic chute that fit perfectly inside the bag. It both held it open and standing up straight. It also made it easy to make sure the debris got into the bag…

I just had to have one of those. It was Sunday afternoon and we were in for the evening, so I figured we would just go to the store early on Monday and do Store Pickup. I checked for local availability and the web site said there were 43 of the Plastic Leaf and Lawn Chutes on hand. Since I was paying by charge card online and the chute is a mere $8.97 I thought maybe I should order something else to make it come to something over ten bucks at least. We were down to just one yard bag, so I added a 5-pack of the bags, of these they had over of thousand in stock, for a whopping $2.47 more.

I placed the order and my confirmation came within seconds. A few hours later I received another email from Home Depot, they were cancelling part of my order, the Leaf and Lawn Chute. I guess their inventory was off, way off. So now I had a charge on my credit card and a Store Pickup for two dollars and forty-seven cents.

When we finally made it to Home Depot on Tuesday morning, I almost pulled into the “Pandemic We’ll Bring It To Your Car” parking spot, but my not wanting to be not rude about it made me go ahead and enter the store. When I arrived at the the Customer Service Desk there were two representatives working and both were helping people. So I stood back my six socially distancing feet and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally someone came free and and helped me, but it seemed like it took so long it might have been quicker if I had walked back outside, moved the car, called the number and had them bring it to me.

I still need a chute, but I guess I can hold off until fall when maybe they actually will have some in stock (the web still says 43 on hand in Klamath Falls.)

Busy Bee

Yesterday afternoon I decided to wash both cars. First up was the Mini. I backed it out into the driveway, unfurled the hose and filled up two 5-gallon buckets (one with soap and water and the other with plain water.) After I finished washing and drying Ladybug I let it roll further down the driveway to pull out the Miata.

As I walked back into the garage I noticed that right smack along the middle seam of the RaceDeck flooring it was buckling up an inch or so. The sun was beating down on the first few feet into the garage and I guess the heat was causing the plastic tiles to expand. Odd that it was right in the middle, there is at least and inch gap between the wall and flooring on both sides for it to move into.

So I moved the Miata out and tried to stomp on and slid the edges outward to flatten the floor in the middle. Not that it really is a problem it would only happen on a sunny warm day with the garage door up for more than a few minutes, but it did upset my uncontrollable need for order. I have been thinking about moving the 24 carpeted tiles from between the two designated parking areas for a while. The carpet gets dirty from car tires hitting the edges and debris being blown in by the westerly breezes running straight up the driveway.

Now would be a good time to do it. Instead of washing the CTBNL I spent the next few hours rearranging the interlocking plastic floor tiles. First I started by basically breaking the floor in half, right up the seam where it was buckling. This gave me access to the middle “aisle” of carpeted flooring. Then I broke apart the inside extended section where the RaceDeck flooring stops by the second door, this was the replacement for the 2′ wide by 12′ long section of carpet. The carpet was then formed into a 3′ by 8′ area to fill in where the CircleTrac style tiles were.

 
This afternoon the CTBNL received its slightly delayed, but much needed, washing. I just started using the 2 bucket wash method here after I bought an orange Home Depot bucket to compliment my blue Lowes bucket I brought with me. It is probably overkill for the 18-year old Miata, as it came with plenty dings and scratches all over. And I’ve added more. But the paint on the newer and fewer miles Mini is in better shape and might benefit from it. I don’t think I’ll go as far as buying grit guards, but this should protect the finishes of the cars some.

Track 02 – The Lullaby of Loneliness

Unlike last Saturday’s Ellis Paul video, I found two that had more than just a photo of the album cover as its image for this The Aaron English Band song. The first one came from the Live DVD that the band produced, but the song didn’t sound like the way I originally heard it. Not that it is a bad rendition or anything, but I picked this version by some random YouTube user that has a video of a car driving around at night with the song I”m familiar with playing in the background.